Rajesh Chandy: Cancel your meetings -- you need time to think

This article was taken from the March 2012 issue of Wired
magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before
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Who is the person most ­responsible for innovation in your
company? If you're like most employees, you will say the CEO. After
all, as the head of the company the CEO has primary responsibility
for the business's future. CEOs such as Steve Jobs are rightly
celebrated for their success at driving innovation. Yet examples of
CEOs who spectacularly botched the future of their respective
companies are plentiful. Ken Olsen, CEO of Digital Equipment
Corporation, famously observed that, "There is no reason anyone
would want a computer in their home." Such was his belief in his
assessment that he actually forbade his employees from using the
words "home computer" or "personal computer" in the company.

Olsen wasn't alone among his fellow CEOs in dismissing an
innovation that ended up weakening or killing his company. An Wang,
CEO of word-processor manufacturer Wang
Laboratories, apparently responded to the personal computer
thus: "The PC is the stupidest thing I ever heard of."

Over several years, my colleagues and I have been studying the
role of CEOs in driving innovation in the companies they lead. What
is the difference between the CEOs who are effective at driving
innovation, relative to those that are not? The most significant
difference, by far, is the extent to which the CEOs focus on the
future.

A naïve observer might imagine that a CEO, as the person who
sets the direction of a company, would spend a substantial
--proportion of his or her time focusing on the future. Yet
researchers who have ­actually trailed CEOs to see what they do
day-to-day find that the actual proportion of time they spend
focusing on the future is stunningly small: less than three per
cent, in some cases.

My colleagues and I set about trying to quantify the effects of
(what we call) the "future focus" of CEOs on innovation outcomes
within companies. First, we simply asked executives to assess the
future focus of their leaders (the extent to which their bosses
focused on future customers, competitors and technologies relative
to today's). It turns out that the future focus of CEOs is by far
the biggest predictor of innovation among the dozens of other
potential predictors we also examined.

Next, based on research in psycho-­linguistics, we used the
prevalence of future-oriented words -- will, shall, may, ought,
predict, future -- in CEO communications as a proxy for the extent
to which CEOs focus on the future. Simply by counting the
occurrence of future-oriented words in leaders' discourse we were
able to predict innovation outcomes in companies -- up to five
years into the future. CEOs' formative experiences also seem to
affect the extent to which they ­focus on the future. For example,
those whose first jobs were in marketing or R&D seem to spend
significantly more time planning for the future than those whose
first jobs were in other functional areas.

What does all this imply? If you are the CEO of your company,
then make a start by monitoring how much time you actually spend
thinking about the future. You might find that you devote a scarily
small proportion of your time to what is arguably your biggest
responsibility. You no doubt have many fires to fight today.

Influential customers might demand immediate attention, just as
today's competitors might loom large in your decision-making. But
if you don't spend enough time pondering what's next, then you too
could end up dismissing ideas that ultimately destroy your
company.

Next, consider ways in which you can free up your time. Bill
Gates used to take off twice a year on "think weeks", during which
he would spend 18-hour days in a cabin in the woods thinking about
the future of Microsoft. Many of the company's most significant
decisions (the move to Windows, the
pursuit of the internet "tidal wave", etc) came immediately after a
Gates think week.

If you are an aspiring CEO, then ­recognise that your functional
background influences how much you think about the future. If your
background is largely in present- or past-focused functions such as
accounting and operations, then you are less likely to think ahead
than if your background is largely in marketing or R&D. Ensure
that you get experience in functional areas that emphasise the
future.

If you are an employee, then you too could do what we did in our
research: ­assess the extent to which your CEO ­focuses on what's
coming. If it barely figures in his or her communications, then we
have two words of advice: bail early!

Rajesh Chandy holds the Tony and Maureen Wheeler Chair in
Marketing at London Business School, where he is ­Academic Director
of the Deloitte ­Institute for Innovation and
Entrepreneurship.

Edited by Dan Smith

Comments

The research seems to be right on spot, i have experienced this happening within our family held business.We were able to come up with major strategic changes during the times when the executive board took a collective leave and then suddenly came up with major innovations for the company's product portfolio.

Adeel Rehman

Feb 27th 2012

I would suggest an alternative ending: "bail early ...or voice your opinion". Very instructive article, thanks!